Excitement mounted recently when it was rumoured that a GTA 6 release was on the cards. That was soon debunked, but many fans of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series still believe it’s definitely going to happen.
We’re not entirely convinced.
There’s a very good reason GTA V remains in the top 5 of the sales charts nearly four years on, and it isn’t anything to do with the satirization of the American dream, nor is it because you can drift around Los Santos whilst mowing down gangs as you bop about to Rihanna on the radio without a shred of shame.
GTA Online is Rockstar’s gravy train, and it’s got enough piping hot brown meat juice to drown a continent (mmm death by gravy).
Even before release, there was talk of GTA Online’s future involving expansions and perhaps even going standalone. When (the now former) Rockstar president Leslie Benzies gave a rare interview just before the release of GTA V he had this to say:
”We want it to grow into its own world. We want it to be its own master. We can bolt things and add things and change things in the online world–because it’s separate–that we maybe couldn’t have done if it was tied in more closely with the single-player. It gives us freedom to do what we want to do. We have a lot of plans for it in the future, and this breaks it off so we can take it anywhere.”
That was before GTA Online saw such staggeringly insane success, now it clearly makes Rockstar and Take Two so much money, the likelihood of GTA Online uncoupling from GTA V and chugging its way into standalone territory is much, much higher.
There would have to be a team specially chosen for handling it and it alone of course, and I can easily believe the company has been planning for the day it happens.
If GTA Online is already selling more than Dolph Ziggler with just Los Santos, then just imagine how much tasty, tasty gravy it could make if it started to add the likes of San Fierro and Las Venturas?
This makes us think that GTA 6 release, a direct numbered sequel of the franchise, just isn’t be a priority for Take Two and Rockstar.
Instead, GTA Online will continue to expand – massively.
Gunrunning is one of the many GTA Online updates
We’re more convinced that we’re likely to see GTA Online 2.0 rather than Rockstar ever reverting back to its older formula.
Perhaps that would be best?
After all, the company has been beavering away on the franchise’s single player entries for two decades, and with plenty of cash to fall back on, and being under new stewardship since Leslie Benzies’ departure, now is as good a time as any for Rockstar to shift the fundamentals of Grand Theft Auto and drive the online experience to new vistas.